"We're Done With Linux", Says Nokia

Nokia the mobile phone giant is having some troubles at the moment (well it's been a while now for them, and many "others" included) without a doubt. It's said that this year along (so far) Nokia's stock price is reduced by more than 40%! which obviously raises concerns, which is apparent.

Anyway, in a recent interview with Helsingin Sanomat (magazine), Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop said that ...

"I have talked a lot about how we increase our staff’s accountability, our empathy to listen to our clients and each other, and our aim to avoid being arrogant..."

The above quote is the answer for Nokia letting go of the MeeGo mobile platform (Linux based) as a result we won't see any Nokia phones with Linux in general (at least not in the near future).
 
We'll, if the numbers are correct and what he's saying is true then this is a desperate attempt to save Nokia from losing her clients. And according to Elop, some of the investors are not happy with the results, concerning the recent past (a year or maybe a bit longer), which seems to be the case.

Anyhow, what the heck does Linux has to do with it?

Well, to start with, sometime ago Nokia purchased the Qt toolkit (which is the GUI builder behind KDE desktop and thousand other application GUIs in GNU/Linux OS) and started to use it to design programs for their mobile phones. Not to worry, they didn't "touch" the license agreement (yet) thus Qt toolkit is still released in the GNU/GPL nonetheless.

What's "in-it" for Nokia?

Well, by using Qt they can create applications that can be run in their other mobile phone operating systems written using Java for instance with ease (because Qt in itself is a "framework").

So, if you have an excellent, Java written media player which was designed using Qt in a Java powered OS for instance, then you can "merge" or make it run in another Nokia mobile phone OS with ease by using Qt. This save both money and, oh well, it saves money :).

Nokia and Intel (including few other tech-giants) renamed the previously know Moblin project to MeeGo somewhere around last year in hope for finding/creating a "cost friendly" mobile operating system using the already existing MeeGo platform.

After bit of a "break" they introduced the latest Nokia smart phone powered by the MeeGo platform called N9 few days ago in Singapore and again Elop made clear the company's intentions even after praising the design, stability, look-n-feel of the N9 smart phone (the smart phone has already received a lot of positive feedback from both users and tech-experts), by saying...

"I have taken part in the conversations with the teleoperators and I have been part of the consumer test groups. The feedback has been extremely positive and I am sure that the Windows Phone system will be a great success.."

N9, the "newly-wed" ;-)...

So, even if the N9 with MeeGo is a great success/hit yet there's no turning back!. Now some say this is because of the lack of the availability of the applications (like Android market or MS Windows online store, etc) which could be true and one certainly can't ignore the power of the online application market any more.

But I highly doubt that MeeGo or Linux (it ain't really "GNU"/Linux since the license isn't fully compatible with GNU-GPL) not having a strong online applications has anything to do with it.

Because I mean come on, seriously!. As far as I know, N9 is the only smart phone that Nokia released which uses MeeGo officially (although the enthusiasts have run the OS in other Nokia phone models, etc) and they just started.

Elop himself said that even if the N9 is a "hit" there's no turning back. Why is that?. If what he meant by a "hit" was not just a success but a massive one, then where's problem?. This is not a judgement on Nokia or anyone but I think the reason is quite simple.

The real investors want better controllability which would ensure the safety of their investments which resembles their interests. But by drifting towards a Linux approach which, in its genuine sense tries to rule out the possibility of a centralised power would simply mean "unstability" from the Nokia's investors point of view because with platforms like MeeGo, does depend on the community, or so it seems.

Although not as "stretched" as Debin or other GNU/Linux OS, etc are since it's actually commercial companies funded it in the first place. Yet the visibility of not the actual users but the "free developers" can scare away the investors because unilke with the "actual users", but a with community driven developer-users, things can get a bit personal between them thus creating an environment in which making decisions can be a bit difficult. I maybe wrong here and easily be misguided but... that's what I feel.

But, I just can't help it any more but to think about, What is the purpose of GNU/Linux?. Lets forget computing, just for few seconds. But what is its real purpose. Is it going against our true nature as Mr. Mark and "others" seems to think?. Is it the reason for these "failures", you know, every time when it seems to be working-out nicely, then out of nowhere, shi* happens... I don't know.

To be honest, I'm too inexperienced to put together a reasonable answer to this. So, as an ending note, perhaps the following quote from Simon Phipp (an Open-Source expert) might help others like me, to get an insight into the matter ...

"Crocodiles are not evil; neither are they good. They are just reptiles, dealing with their hunger.To call something "a reptile" is not a value judgement; quite the opposite since reptiles are demonstrably amoral and mechanistic...

Despite their evil looks and repellant behavior, they are just being reptiles, doing what reptiles do. Working with them is not a matter of relying on their goodwill. It's all down to understanding their instincts - and learning to stand in the right place...

And that's what I mean when I say a corporation is just a reptile."